Month: August 2016

False Witness

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 1 Comment

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Daily Prompt
Witness
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False Witness

Whenever I see the word witness, I automatically think of the 8th commandment. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” The 10 Commandments have carried a lot of weight for all of mankind ever since Moses carried the stone tablets down from the mountain. The court systems worldwide swear in witnesses with one hand on a Bible. A court of law, the foundation for telling of the truth, is that courtroom.

When witnesses swear under oath that someone committed a crime and that witness is lying, the consequences for the person being tried are very serious and very unfair, as he is sentenced for a crime he did not commit. Someone could bear false witness against another, even under oath for many hateful reasons. That is why it is such an egregious crime.

Our complicated legal system creates a lot of hourly pay for attorneys, who do the groundwork of rounding up information to aid in their clients defense. He wants the best witnesses he can possibly get. He also wants to have a chance to question and pick the jurors that might lean his way on the case. In many cases the person with the most money or privileged position can also have the most influence on the jurors that are picked. This could quite possibly bring about an unfair trial but the system allows for that with an endless appeal process.

Government or business whistle blowers who decide to spill the beans about fraud or gang land criminal activity have access to a witness protection program that is run by the Justice Department. This program, in a lot of cases is the only reason they can get a witness to testify. The witness protection program is quite costly and is no guarantee of safety for a witness. Those in charge of the program can be bought off, and divulge the location of someone. Some will seek revenge against a former witness endlessly.

“As of 2013, 8,500 witnesses and 9,900 family members have been protected by the U.S. Marshals Service since 1971.\l ”
“Around 17 percent of protected witnesses who have committed a crime will be caught committing another crime, compared to the almost 41 percent of parolees who return to
crime.”

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Miniature Micro Nano

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Miniature
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Miniature Micro Nano

When we think of miniature, a lot of times we think of collectibles. A lot of different collectible things like cars are in miniature, mainly it is more practical to handle small objects and place them on shelves as you collect them. Some farmers are the exception to the rule. They collect full-size tractors and have barns and buildings full of full-size farm tractors. There are also many collectors of miniature farm equipment. Artists have crafted miniature objects for centuries. The challenge of making things in miniature must drive them. The artist, potter and other craftsman seek perfection in their miniatures.

The daily prompt Miniature got me thinking about miniature in the field of medicine and how it is helping all of mankind. Miniature is huge, gigantic sized today, compared to micro and nano technologies. Miniature still does wonderful things in the field of medicine. The rest of this post talks about micro and nanotechnology and I listed five breakthroughs that have taken place in the past year. I tried to write a summary about that article, but soon realized, I had no idea what I was talking about. So I put a URL link so everyone can access and read about these new breakthroughs, if they wish to do that.

Number 1 There have been five breakthroughs in the past year in the medical field. One of them deals with early detection of lung cancer. It was discovered by two doctors at the University of Missouri. It’s a simple test using nanotechnology. A sample micro RNA, which is easy to track them from the sample of blood plasma they run it through a nano protein-based membrane is so small and let’s only one molecule past, this test can determine very early detection is the patient prone to getting lung cancer.

Number 2 The next breakthrough is a test for the flu, the old tests are very inaccurate and it takes up to two weeks to get the results back, by then an epidemic could be out of control. The doctor takes a fluid sample, mixes that with a gold nanoparticles filled solution. The test will quickly show if the person has the flu and the test is also very inexpensive. The gold used is in such a minute amount that it costs 1/100 of a cent to take this test.

Number 3 The next test involves early cancer detection in tumors. Jeff Brinker and his team at Sandia National Labs in New Mexico invented a contraption to kill cancer in tumors. Proto cells target cancerous cells; they have at least a 99% affinity to bond with the overgrowth of receptors that occur on the cell membrane of tumors. It is highly specialized and economical as well; only one protocell is necessary to silence a tumor. The procedure they have invented attacks and kills the cancer within the tumor.

Number 4 The next breakthrough involves drug testing, pharmaceutical companies usually spent 12 years and over $300 million in the process testing drugs for cell cultures so one professor Karen Martinez, the team at University of Copenhagen, and made a breakthrough in biosensors. They insert semi conductor nano-wires into a cell without interfering with its internal processing or killing it, this process speed up the testing of all drugs worldwide and help lower the cost of drugs.

Number 5 The next breakthrough is my favorite. It involves treatment of a patient after severe spinal cord injury has been done. The spinal cord injuries that Christopher Reeves received prompted a lot of spinal cord research, these two researchers in Malan, Italy, have made what is possibly the most important breakthrough yet in the restoration of the spinal cord. The prospects sound very good. They did their first research on rats, with no motor skills. They improved and didn’t have to drag their back legs around anymore. They also responded better to all stimuli.

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1950

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 1 Comment


Daily Prompt
Fifty
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We have a daily prompt Fifty. I could not figure out what to write about the word fifty. I thought, write about when I turned 50 years old, then decided that wasn’t really exciting writing material. Most of my life experiences haven’t been newsmakers.

I thought I would write about the time my cousin and I went to the livestock arena to watch a livestock sale in progress. It was very exciting, watching all of the big buyers send secret signals to the auctioneer. The price of a critter keeps going up higher and higher and you can’t see where the bid is coming from.

The sale usually starts out with the cows and calves and toward the end sheep and goats. My cousin said, “let’s get about $.50 worth of Billy Goats.” I asked, “how many Billy goats do you get for $.50? How many goats do we need? I think we better pass on the Billy goats. Big time livestock buyers, he was messing with my head!

I decided to write about the year 1950. The United States was just coming out of a recession. It was belt-tightening time for many. My parents got divorced in 1950. My mother had three hungry, growing boys to raise on her own.

One thing I do remember, the gravy got real thin some meals. There wasn’t a whole lot, to go with the gravy at other meals. We learned how to chop up bacon ends and pieces, fry it, pour off the extra grease, keep it for other use. Sautee the bacon with chopped onions, add flour, burn it a little, slowly add milk and water,(no lumps) then stir like mad until it was thick. Lucky for us, the day-old bread store was near. The first ole margarine was a clear bag of white grease with an orange pill in it. Break the pill and squeeze that bag half a day, you almost had ‘can’t believe it’s not butter.’

When the 1950s started moving, “there was a whole lot of shaken going on.” Rock ‘n roll was born in the mid-fifties and is still alive and well. There must have been a new rock ‘n roll group hitting Ed Sullivan’s stage every week of the year. None will ever be remembered as the “King” Elvis Presley when he made his first appearance on Ed Sullivan’s stage. It looked like Ed Sullivan may be ready to have a heart attack, when Elvis started all of his gyrations on Sullivan’s national TV show. The TV was still in its infancy in those days. The cameras didn’t show Elvis below the waistline after the first minute. Remember drive-in cafes, carhops on roller skates? Peanuts in your coke?

The economy started growing really well. There was lots of employment, many women kept their jobs after the Second World War. There were honest mortgages for new homes being built. More and more people were moving from the rural areas into the cities. Times were looking very good for young families, starting out in their new homes under the G.I. Bill.

The population grew by 28 million people in the 1950s. Harry S Truman was the president when North Korea decided to invade the South. The lawmakers in Washington, just coming out of the Second World War didn’t want anything to do with a war in Korea. President Truman committed troops in June of 1950, offering to help South Korea in a limited way. The United States citizens, families sacrificed 54,246 lives lost.

Gen. Dwight D Eisenhower became the president in 1953. An armistice was signed with North Korea on July 27, 1953. The 38th parallel became the new boundary between North Korea and South Korea, and it stands that way today with armed forces on each side of the boundary looking at each other every day of the week.

President Eisenhower was a retired Army general, I do believe that is why he was so knowledgeable about the ramifications of war and the government’s relationships with those who supply the armament for those wars. I would like to quote Gen. Eisenhower here. He made this speech at the end of his presidency.

“Fearful that the military-industrial complex was developing an enormous power to absorb national resources, Eisenhower issued one last warning. “As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow”. In retrospect, the words of the President demonstrated extreme insight into the future of America, as the Cold War continued with increasing urgency, and Vietnam tore the nation apart.

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Easy Scratch Recipes Week 25

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 4 Comments

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Easy Scratch Recipes Week 25

Rosettes from Norway.

1 c. flour                    1 tsp. sugar

1 c. water                   1tsp vanilla

2 eggs

Mix flour and water; beat until nice and smooth. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla together; add to flour mixture. Put in refrigerator for several hours. Heat oil to at least 380° before frying. Heat irons in the oil – the hotter the irons, the easier their rosettes come off.

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Live and Learn

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 2 Comments

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Daily Prompt
Learning
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Live and Learn

The Daily Prompt for the day is the word learning. Learning is an amazing and complex thing. We start learning from the moment we are born and we continue learning until the day we die. If we do not have the will to learn on our own we will still learn from exposure to others. Learning on the job or at the School of Hard Knocks, like trial and error, is lasting learning.

The human brain is designed to retain anything and everything that comes to it through the eyes, ears, and voice. Memorizing, by saying something over and over. The ability to understand more complex information grows constantly. Teachers still use some visual aids and textbooks teaching the elementary grades. Electronic devices are the new teachers.

I went to school my first day at our little country school and evidently wasn’t very impressed by it. My mother told me later, on the second day of school, she said, “you have to get ready for school” and I replied no, “I’m not going to go anymore.” At the age of five, I had made that decision about learning. I was going to be involved in my own learning and not attend school. I learned right away. It doesn’t work that way. My mother said, “You will go to school with your brothers and you will learn what the teacher asks you to learn.” So that was settled very neatly and very quickly.

Our little country school didn’t have a lot of learning resources available for the kids. We had classes one through eight and I don’t believe kindergarten had started yet. There were blackboards on the walls and dusty erasers that required daily cleaning. Erasers need to be dusted off outside, in a cloud of chalk dust, seems like there was a duty roster. Anyone going to the outhouse usually took the erasers along.

There were basic building blocks for the little kids to learn the ABCs and other skills. Books about learning to read Jack and Jill ran up the hill, etc. Nursery rhymes and books of poetry. Music books, “She Will Be Coming Around the Mountain.” The school had a good library to use for information searches. The closest thing to GOOGLE, was the noise when you pushed the button for a drink on the old Red Wing water cooler. We were all in one classroom and could get help from any of the other student willing to lend the teacher a hand. Learning was a good, simple thing.

Now, 70 years later our world has unimaginative learning resources available. Libraries with books are sad things of the past. I’m not sure the little building blocks with the ABCs on them are still around. They now have different shapes for locking and interlocking them together to build things with, evidently, architecture starts in preschool now. There is electronic learning for all ages, from infants to graduate school. Learning rapid speech, finger dexterity and hand-eye coordination are all stressed. This evidently means the world will not be controlled by robots completely, they will need a few people to keep them in tune.

Learning has been a great thing, it has advanced this world to the point that it’s at today, mind-boggling. We have one thing to fear. What if we stop learning? If we let the computers do all of our thinking for us. We could start going the other direction by not learning, that would be a very bad thing. We will keep dumbing down society until the only people needed are a handful of computer experts to keep the computers running.a

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Venus Via The Moon

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Daily Prompt

Moon

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Venus Via The Moon

Can you look face-to-face into the full moon? Do you have shades or windows shutters to keep the moonlight from shining into your bedroom? The powers of the moon are very strong. They mess with human emotion and affect our sleep. Do you sleep less during a full moon? Even when the room is dark, even if the moon is not shining in your bedroom window? Some new studies show many people sleep poorly during a full moon, a clear answer doesn’t seem to be found. The light of the moon has some effect on peoples sleep, even if they can’t see the moonlight.

The logic goes that if the moon exerts a title force on bodies of water, such as seas, large lakes, and even rivers. The gravitational pull, positive ions, that polarization of lunar light are evidence for a direct relationship between lunar phases and human biology must also exist.

Partygoers, people drinking during a full moon get a lot wilder and loonier, every bartender will tell you that. Wolves and coyotes can’t help themselves, they have to howl at the bright full moon. Talking to long-lost members of the pack or just the social glue that bonds them together. The incessant howls can make your hair raise up on a still night.

“The Spiritual Science Research Foundation (SSRF) examined the effect of the moon on human behavior using spiritual research methodologies. In the spiritual research that we conducted to ascertain the effect of the moon on human behavior the short answer was yes, it does have an effect. The following are the various aspects of how the moon affects our lives.”

I have been trying to keep an open mind about all the powers contained in that big moon up above. I think what I will do tonight is sleep with my shades and window wide open. I will relax and let what moonlight there come shining in. I will try to sleep until that spaceship arrives from Venus again. The crew is all Amazon women, ready to take me back to their planet for a visit, after a few trips around our moon. Good moon night to all, sweet dreams.

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The Ghost Ship

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 3 Comments

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Ghost

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The Ghost Ship

Ghosts are making a comeback, but a comeback from where? Where have all the ghosts been? Floating around vacant houses, some dragging chains behind them? Walking around some ones camp ground in the forest at night, or looking up from a lake bottom, still in cement shoes. For some reason even with modern day living, the idea of ghosts is becoming more popular, more people believe in them. There are claimes of ghosts being caught in pictures taken with cell phone cameras today. There has to be a large increase in the ghost population underway.

In the good old days before modern medicine a person just stayed home and died. They were usually dead and gone in short order, without medical care when they got sick. Dying in your own bed, would be the ideal situation for your spirit to want to hang around a while, to keep an eye on things. Becoming a ghost must not be a choice we get, it must be determined by how the death takes place.

I’ve come to believe with all of our modern medicine. There are many new ways of keeping a human body suspended in limbo between life and death. This opens a whole new can of worms. Maybe not a can of worms but a whole new area of discussion about out of body experiences. Some people claim floating around in the operating room, watching the doctors from somewhere up around the ceiling. Most doctors will say that is an impossible thing, it did not happen. In some cases the patient describes in detail parts of the procedure that was being done to him.

There can be an equipment failure, something goes wrong during one of these heart or brain surgeries, the body cannot be held in a suspended state indefinately. If that body dies, I do believe the spirit could leave it to be free somehow. Maybe it gets out and wants to stay as a free spirit, a ghost. Why would it go back to die with the body? There are a lot of travel perks for ghosts.Your spirit will no doubt have the power to travel at the speed of light to a different area, pass through walls and closed doors or whatever. You are a spirit, able to travel anywhere.

Space scientists are ready to announce a breakthrough on new ways of space travel, possibly about light speed. The astronauts spirits could travel to other galaxies. The body reformatted to the original state to do construction work, build space stations etc.. Those ready to return to earth are put back into a spirit state for travel. The ghost ship traveling at light speed.

“Recent surveys have shown that a significant portion of the population believes in ghosts, leading some scholars to conclude that we are witnessing a revival of paranormal beliefs in Western society. A Harris poll from last year found that 42 percent of Americans say they believe in ghosts. The percentage is similar in the U.K., where 52 percent of respondents indicated that they believed in ghosts in a recent poll.” believe

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Soul Eye Views

/ Leland Olson Hoel / 2 Comments

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Daily Prompt

Eyes

Daily Prompt

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Soul Eye Views

“There is an old saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul.” The ears are also excellent input devices. This is a true statement, eyes and smiles give a regular condition of the soul report. We sometimes communicate more with our eyes than we do verbally.

When you talk to someone, you should make eye contact with them. The eye contact between two people talking shows the sincerity between them about the conversation. By looking away from someone while talking it might make it look like your trying to deceive them. Possibly to keep something from them because you don’t feel right in your own mind about what is being said. Eye contact between two people during a conversation is very important, a must for a job interview.

Our eyes can transmit signs of great happiness and joy. When you meet a person with twinkling happy eyes you no doubt have met a person who is happy within themselves. They are happy from their eyes down into their souls. The twinkling eyes advertise a great feeling of true peace and contentment.

The eyes can also show great suffering, maybe from extreme pain or the shock from bad news. The eyes will lose their sparkle and be sad and have a sullen look about them. Our eyes are actually like neon signs, some bright others dim. They tell the world about our souls, about our condition at any given time. Be it either happiness or sadness, the eyes will very seldom send the wrong signal to the other person. Tears in the eyes can come in many forms, happy, sad, long and loud laughter or pity me now, please.

Most of us are very fortunate to have good eyesight, we can enjoy all of the different sites that are around us and the other people we come in contact with. People who have lost their sight may see more than many of us, as all of their other senses become much sharper.

We must continue to be hopeful that our eyes will show us the way that we should go, sort out right and wrong. The visual message is sent from the eyes back to the brain, where it is sorted out and the brain decides if the message goes to the shredder or permanent storage in the soul. Our eyes can reflect either spiritual light or spiritual darkness within our souls.

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